Brad Rench has taken the reins of First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust’s Metro East market in the wake of Gordon Smith’s recent retirement. Rench succeeds Gordon as senior vice president and regional president of First Mid’s operations in Southwestern Illinois which include banking centers in Highland, Maryville and Pocahontas. He is responsible for growing core business lines including commercial and personal banking, trust & wealth management, and insurance. RenchSmith Rench holds a bachelor’s of science degree in finance from Western Illinois University and brings more than 30 years of experience to the position, with more than 10 years of senior management expertise and a background in serving the commercial lending needs of individuals throughout Southwestern Illinois. Rench is enthusiastic about his start at First Mid-Illinois Bank - an institution he says is on very firm financial footing and gives him an opportunity to focus on business development. He believes Southwestern Illinois is a strong market and that First Mid-Illinois has a great opportunity to grow its business here. First Mid-Illinois Bank has a full toolbox of services it can offer to business customers: trust, wealth management, farm management, brokerage and insurance - a cadre of non-traditional bank services. This full complement of business services, he adds, helps equip the bank to be a better partner to the business owner, and also helps the bank navigate through this low-margin interest rate environment. While Smith has retired from the role of regional president, he is remaining on with the bank as senior vice president of business development. A graduate of Illinois State University, Smith began his banking career in 1972 as a commercial and agricultural lender. He moved into the role of senior vice president and regional president for the Metro East region in 2001. He has devoted more than 40 years to serving customers throughout Madison County and surrounding areas. After 42 years in the banking business, Smith says he wasn’t ready to hang up his uniform just yet. In his new role, he will spend the next 18 months calling on both existing customers and prospective new customers, looking to cement old relationships and create new ones. Smith has spent the past 12 years of his 42-year banking career at First Mid-Illinois Bank; they were years of great growth for the bank, he says. He and Rench have been friends for 20 years; Smith says Rench is the ideal individual to grow the bank’s business in Southwestern Illinois.

IBJ Business News

Quality Testing announces lab expansion

Quality Testing and Engineering Inc. announces a major expansion of its laboratory and testing services at its corporate headquarters in O’Fallon, Ill. Recently, QTE expanded its qualifications to include hot mix asphalt laboratory testing services. In addition, this expansion had led to adding hot mix asphalt accreditation to the company’s previous accreditations of concrete, aggregate and soils. The QTE lab now meets IDOT’s QC and QA qualifications for hot mix asphalt, concrete and aggregate. To date, only 17 firms in Illinois have QA qualifications for hot mix and aggregate. QTE has the only prequalified lab in Central and Southern Illinois.

McAninch joins HeplerBroom

Brady McAninch has joined HeplerBroom LLC in the Edwardsville office as an associate attorney.

IBJ Business News

WVS is Brand Elite

Williams Venker & Sanders LLC is included in BTI Consulting’s report, The BTI Brand Elite: Client Perceptions of the Best-Branded Law Firms 2013. According to BTI’s survey, corporate counsel see WVS standing out for client recommendations, which earned the firm a place on BTI’s Client Recommendations Honor Roll.